


Remorse

by MizzAdamz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Discord: Hearts & Cauldrons SSHG Server, EWE, Gratuitous Shakespeare Quotations, Guilt, Healing, Male Friendship, Other, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Remorse, Severus Snape Lives, background Hermione Granger/Severus Snape - Freeform, hard conversations, tea is spilled, the redemption arc we didn't know we needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28044048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizzAdamz/pseuds/MizzAdamz
Summary: “Lucius, we are men of action, men who have seen things the rest of the world wouldn’t understand. These,” Severus waved his hand at the tea service dismissively, “trivialities are meaningless. Get to the point.”ORWhen two former comrades meet and have a hard conversation.
Relationships: Lucius Malfoy & Severus Snape
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Hearts and Cauldrons Discord Members





	Remorse

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to @SeverusSnep for your excellent Beta skills.
> 
> Thank you the Hearts and Cauldrons Discord server for fostering this little story.

Severus stood with his back to the cold marble fireplace and crossed his arms over his chest, the dark fabric of his robes hung in curtains from his elbows.

Lucius Malfoy sat in an elegant armchair upholstered in a rich cream coloured fabric that matched his long hair. The once elegant man had dark lines and circles on his face, and dark ink marred the once pristine skin on his neck. His clothes were clean and well cut, but they hung a little loose on his frame.

Lucius was clean shaven for the first time in what may have been months, since the Battle of Hogwarts, and even before he had appeared worn and raggedy. It seemed now that all was said and done, the head of the Malfoy family was trying to regain normalcy.

He still had yet to address why he invited Hogwarts’ least favoured headmaster to his home, but Severus had found himself greeted as he had been many times before and guided to this room and had declined the seat graciously offered to him.

“Well Severus, here we are.” Lucius said, waving his hand in the air.

Severus said nothing, but nodded his head at his host.

“Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here!  
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,  
That has such people in ’t!” Lucius said, getting to his feet and walking toward his guest.

“'Tis new to thee.” Severus spoke with a gravelly tone. The healers thought his voice would return to full strength and timbre in time, but his body and magic had to recover from the ravages of the cursed familiar’s venom.

“And not to thee, old friend?” Lucius asked.

“Old friends, is that what we are?”

“After all this time and with what we have survived, I can think of no other title for each other.”  
Lucius motioned to the chair he vacated, “Sit Severus, sit and have a drink with me.”

“Why am I here Lucius?”

“To talk, just to talk.” Lucius splayed his open hands, “I am wandless for the time being, and I know better than to try to poison someone with your skills. No, Severus, I just wished to speak with you.”

“And if I don’t wish to speak with you?” Severus remained where he was, arms still crossed.

“Will you listen to me then?” Lucius swallowed and bowed his head.

Severus closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. Without opening his eyes, he nodded and Lucius clapped once.

“Wonderful! Please have a seat, I will bring in some refreshments. I’ve heard the rumour that you are sober as a judge now so it will just be tea if that is acceptable?” Lucius asked and without waiting for a response rushed out of the room.

Severus made his way to the chair that Lucius had recently vacated and sat down. He uncrossed his arms and instead crossed one leg over the other and leaned backward in the chair.

He kept his arms loose and ready at his side. He still wished to draw his wand quickly should the need arise.

Lucius came in shortly after, carrying a silver tray with a tea service on it. He placed it on the low table in the middle of the room and poured the tea with a forced enthusiasm.

“Lucius, stop this,” Severus snapped.

“Stop what?” he asked, putting down the silver teapot and picking up the milk jug.

“Stop acting like some maid trying to win a suitor. Say your piece and be done with it.”

Lucius put down the milk jug and stood up, “I thought you would appreciate the effort.”

“Lucius, we are men of action, men who have seen things the rest of the world wouldn’t understand. These,” Severus waved his hand at the tea service dismissively, “trivialities are meaningless. Get to the point.”

Lucius sighed, walked to an overstuffed ottoman covered in the same cream fabric as the chair. He adjusted the legs of his trousers as he moved to sit down. He then put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward and touched the fingertips of each hand together a few times, gathering his thoughts.

“There are several things I wish to say. I will start with the most important. Then if you feel the need to leave, at least I will have that done.”

Severus shifted his head a fraction, but again stayed silent. Lucius swallowed, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and spoke again.

“First, I need to thank you, I owe you a debt that I doubt I will ever be able to repay. The gold in my vaults can’t even touch the debt, even before the government demanded its share. You stepped up and saved my son’s life when I could not step forward. You saved him from my mistakes. That alone is worth all I have and more.

“Then there is the fact that you saved us all Severus, you did what all of us feared to do. You defied the Dark Lord and brought him down. You did it knowing it would mean your death, and you didn’t flinch. Your bravery is unmatched by any I have known.”

“I didn’t bring down the Dark Lord, I was dying when he met with his own end.” Severus said in a flat voice.

“You defied the Dark Lord at every turn. Every order he gave you, you subverted. He told you to spy on Dumbledore, you became Dumbledore’s spy; he told you to control and subjugate Hogwarts, you protected the students; he told you to bring him Potter; you gave Potter the tools to defeat him; you killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s orders and made the Dark Lord reward you.

“You saw what he had become before the rest of us and you defied him and made him thank you for it! You saved my family again. You saved all of us.” Lucius’ voice was tight and he clenched his hands together. He gritted his teeth and looked up.

“For my family’s sake, for my son’s sake, I am in your debt.”

“I didn’t do it for you, Lucius. Draco was my student, I would have treated every student in my care the same.” Severus didn’t want this obligation.

“You may not have done it for me, but I am still sitting here alive and with my family because of you. That isn’t something I can forget.”

“I accept your gratitude, Lucius, let that be the end. I do not want anymore debts burdening my person.”

“Let me — “

“No!” Severus barked, sitting upright. Lucius flinched and tried to withdraw into himself in fear. Severus noticed this and took a deep breath, “I have lived my entire adult life under the burden of a debt and wish it on no one. If you claim we are friends, then let this be a matter of friendship.”

“I, I can accept that.” Lucius said, relaxing a little.

“What else did you wish to say?” Severus asked.

“Well, I wanted to ask you — “

“My testimony is public record, I will not go into more detail than that. Ever.”

“No Severus, how crude do you think I am? No, I wanted to ask if you can cast a fully corporeal patronus?” 

“Yes, I can.”

“Still? Even after Dumbledore?”

“Yes,” Severus said this through gritted teeth.

Lucius took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. He closed his eyes and breathed again and tapped his right knee with his ring finger, the one that was barren of its usual crest.

“One more question Severus, if I may,” he said, his eyes still closed, his finger still nervously tapping.

“One more.” Severus knew what the question was going to be.

“How?” Lucius opened his grey eyes, red rimmed but steady as he looked for his answer. 

“How?” 

“How can you still have a soul whole enough to cast a patronus, least of all a fully corporeal one?”

“Remorse,”

Lucius snorted dismissively, “That fairytale?”

“That fairytale,” Severus confirmed, “The Dark Lord, was defeated not by one fairytale, but by several. The stories we tell children are more powerful than most realise.”

“It can’t be that easy.” Lucius scoffed and shifted in his seat.

“I never said it was easy, it is never easy for the heroes in the stories we tell, why should it be so for us? It was simple, but it isn’t easy.”

“But surely being sorry for what one has done isn’t enough.” Lucius stood up and paced back and forth.

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red.”

“My hands are of your colour, Lucius, but I dedicated years of my life to the repenting of my deeds. I planned to suffer until death to repair the damages I had done.” 

Severus stood up and mumbled mostly to himself, “That was until a bushy-haired know-it-all took that away from me.”

He walked towards his host and stopped the man’s pacing by putting a hand on his shoulder.

“It is painful knitting together what was rent with hatred, what we did in a blink of an eye takes a lifetime to repair.”

“You did it though?” Lucius looked into his eyes.

“I did.” Severus nodded.

“You survived the pain of it?”

Severus put his hand to his neck and held it over the still healing marks left behind by fangs and wand, “I did, though it was the worst I had ever experienced.”

“Worse than Bella’s cruciatus?”

“That was an angel’s kiss,” Severus chortled.

“Then there is no hope for me. I wouldn’t survive it. I don’t have your strength.” Lucius sighed.

“What would it mean for you to be whole?” Severus asked, taking his hand away from his host’s shoulder and returned to his seat.

“Apart from my dignity, and the ability to look my son in the eye without shame? I could love my wife again, I could sleep through the night without dreading the darkness. I haven’t put the pieces of my soul into pretty baubles Severus, but I feel hollow and broken all the same.”

“Then you need to repent Lucius. You need to experience genuine remorse and let it heal you.”

“If I die from it?” Lucius asked, tears fell unnoticed down his cheeks.

“You will have died trying to do the right thing.” 

Lucius gave a sardonic chuckle and sat back down on the ottoman, “Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer. Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.”

“So take him to thee, shepherd. Fare you well,” Severus responded.

“Only you Severus, of all my acquaintances can quote the Bard back to me.”

“Only you, Lucius, of all of mine insist he was a Squib.”

“Tis a Brave New World indeed,” Lucius put a hand on his temple and shook his head.  
“I may concede that he was probably a Muggle, but the man made his own magic.”

Severus said nothing as Lucius sat with his head in his hands. Letting his host sit with his thoughts.

“How did you start?” his voice fragile, slightly muffled by his hands.

“I focused on the first person I hurt; the first person I betrayed. I relived the look of betrayal in their eyes over and over. I did it so often that it was the only thing I saw when I saw their eyes. Even when their eyes were no longer theirs.”

Lucius looked up, “The Evans girl? Potter’s mother, he has her eyes, doesn’t he? Everyone says so.” 

Severus just nodded.

“You saw him every day when you taught him! Merlin Severus, you were destroying yourself every time you saw the child!”

He nodded again.

“I don’t have your strength Severus.” Lucius shook his head, “I can’t subject myself to that pain.”

“You do not know what you can endure until you have endured it,” he shrugged.

“So I have to choose a hair-shirt of my making and endure until I can no longer, then endure some more, and I will eventually be free of this emptiness and restore my soul?” Lucius asked.

Severus nodded a third time.

“Have you gained peace yet?” 

Severus sighed and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes, breathing slowly, and was still for a time. Then a ghost of a smile tightened the corners of his eyes and he opened them to look directly at Lucius. 

“Yes.” He said with the smooth tones of his old voice.

“Then there is hope, it will end.” Lucius sobbed, “I will do this Severus, I will flay myself apart to make myself whole again.”

Severus let his friend cry out his grief. Though, he waved his wand to warm up the tea in the silver pot and had it pour Lucius a fresh cup laden with sugar and that thick cream the man preferred and floated the cup and saucer over to him.

Lucius took the tea absently and held it in shaky hands as tears dripped disgracefully down his face.

“To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, recanting goodness, sorry ere ’tis shown;  
But where there is true friendship, there needs none.” Severus offered.

“More welcome are ye to my fortunes, than my fortunes to me.” Lucius lifted the teacup and drank in toast to his guest.  
After he has swallowed his tea, Lucius put his cup and saucer down on the table and wiped his face with his hands.

“You’ll dine with us tonight. ‘Cissa would insist on it.”

“I will, but I can’t stay much longer than dinner. I am expected elsewhere.”

“I hope you can be happy Severus, she seems very fond of you.”

“She is young, she doesn’t know what she wants.”

“You knew what you wanted at that age. Do not discount her. Come, let us go see my wife.” Lucius stood, Severus did as well, and Lucius clapped his friend on the back. “She has been perfecting a lovely salad that you must try. She grew the leaves herself!”

Together they walked from the room and the silver tea service vanished with a gentle “pop” from the table.


End file.
